MSNBC lapdog Chuck Todd tossed a life preserver to floundering Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel earlier today, taking to Twitter to argue that it was unfair of Sen. Ted Cruz to bring up Hagel’s response to a C-SPAN caller. Todd wasn’t done, though. He later tweeted that Hagel’s flame-out was due to his being “professorial.” Not that that’s what Todd thinks — he’s just an objective journalist passing along what he’s heard from Hagel supporters.

So, the same testimony that Brit Hume said revealed Hagel to be “just not very bright” has others defending him as too professorial? Sounds about right.

What does “professorial” mean, anyway? We too know we’ve heard it before, somewhere. That’s right — after President Obama floundered in the first presidential debate against Mitt Romney, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Reuters and others wrote that Obama was too professorial. (Politico has a handy wrap-up.) So that’s what professorial means.

@chucktodd if that performance was professorial I hope its not tenured.